


no vacant stare, no time for me

by theinkwell33



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Angst, Based on a Tumblr Post, Character Study, Crowley Was Raphael Before He Fell (Good Omens), Ficlet, Gen, Geology, Happy Ending, M/M, Memory, Mini-Fic, One Shot, Pining, Post-Fall (Good Omens), fluff if you squint, kind of, shameless metaphoring
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-01
Updated: 2019-08-01
Packaged: 2020-07-23 01:00:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,022
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20001376
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theinkwell33/pseuds/theinkwell33
Summary: It's difficult to choose between remembering a loss and forgetting a friendship.After Crowley's Fall, Aziraphale arrives in Eden wondering if he should ask for his memories to be taken away.





	no vacant stare, no time for me

**Author's Note:**

> Written because of [this tumblr post.](https://smexy-rectangle.tumblr.com/post/186543982897/we-all-know-the-what-if-crowley-and-aziaphale)
> 
> Title comes from Hozier's From Eden because of course!

Memory, like water, is a fluid, destructive thing. 

It seeps downward, erodes and carves deep grooves into the mind. It exposes layered thoughts and words and sounds and tastes. It leaves a mark, but you don’t notice until enough time has been used up. Until the damage has already been done.

Aziraphale knows there is a canyon in his mind, a striated passageway of well-worn details of someone he has since lost. Red hair, white robes, and lazy, affectionate speech. The smell of ozone and earth and balsam. A friend he knows so well that every part of his mind is linked by one recollection or another. An ouroboros of word associations.

After the Fall and its fallout, there is not a day that passes where Aziraphale does not keenly sense his friend’s absence. A phantom limb, a skipped meal, two hands hovering on the precipice of touch but never quite reaching it. Michaelangelo hasn’t been created yet (only Adam himself, and only just), so there is no iconic painting in existence to depict this feeling.

It hurts like a gaping wound.

And it is also numb.

Aziraphale wonders if that’s even possible, despite the concrete proof that shows up in his cyclical eddies of emotions. Grief, pain, blankness, loss, love, anger, cruel compassion.

He is constantly on the verge of begging for his memories be taken away. He hates that he and his friend are now on opposite sides; it feels less like a vertical fall and more like a horizontal chasm has opened up between them. If only he could just forget...

He cannot count how many times he nearly asks. The words tumble around within him, a raging waterfall of fear and want. But something always stops him from getting the words out. Maybe more than one something. This is _Asking A Question_ , and though all questions get answered in one way or another, Aziraphale is worried about the nature of this particular answer given recent events.

So, he tries not to think too loudly, lest it get heard before he’s ready. Aziraphale is not necessarily impulsive; if he makes a decision quickly, it's because he's confident it's the right choice. But this isn't one of those times. He isn’t sure it’s what he wants, after all.

He wants to forget.

And he also doesn’t.

You see, the grooves of a deep friendship are still there, the memories swirling - _sauntering_ \- downward through eons of erosion. Without them, Aziraphale would only have a dry, empty canyon. Nothing can replace those empty spaces, not ever. And without the memories, he’d always wonder what was supposed to be there. What the missing piece was. _Who_ it was.

His first night in Eden is spent looking up at the stars. He is guarding Adam and Eve, a flaming sword casting shadows on the palm fronds around him. His pose would probably look rather grandiose in silhouette, but Aziraphale is too wary of this sword to appreciate the aesthetic. It doesn’t fit quite right in his hands. He wonders if he’ll just have to get used to it. He’s becoming rather good at getting used to things.

He does not sleep, but the humans do, so for now he is alone and awake and pensive. If his friend were here, he would turn to him, and ask:

“When did the constellations get so small? They must be a very long way away from Earth.”

His friend helped hang the stars all that time ago, although to that poor soul, they must be more distant now than they’ve ever been. The realization lances through Aziraphale’s heart like a strike from the flaming sword. Hot and bright and painful.

“If only you could see this world, my dear,” he murmurs apologetically. There is no response, nor did he expect one. He supposes his friend has gone where he cannot follow, so he takes to morosely watching the moon trek across the dark sky. It leaves no trail in its wake - it doesn’t carve, it orbits. 

Aziraphale wishes his memories did that. It certainly would be kinder, if they formed ripples along the surface, rather than irreparably digging into the soft parts of you.

He can practically see, even now, his Fallen friend’s “watch _this_ , angel” smile, his iridescent feathers fluttering, the glow of a newly made star sitting in his palms. The memory of the delight on his friend’s face is gouged into the dark space behind Aziraphale’s eyes. An afterimage of innocence, paradise. And as much as it aches, he cannot let himself forget that beautiful moment. It is precious now that so much else has already been lost.

A star shoots across the black. Aziraphale ultimately composes a carefully worded wish that his recollections did less damage and shed more light.

_Wishing is not the same as asking questions, right? Wishing is a form of hope._

The next day, the Tree bears its first fruits, and they gleam a tempting and luscious red. 

A river chisels its way through Eden.

A snake mirrors the water’s path and weaves amid the soil and roots.

More damage is coming. Oh, yes. 

But also some light.

* * *

It's sunny enough that Aziraphale casts a shadow when he stands on the wall the following afternoon. He gazes out at the thunderstorm, marking the rain ahead.

He and Crawly (or Crowley, as he’ll later be called) have just met, and they watch the humans begin their exile.

Unable to tell what his friend remembers, Aziraphale pretends he recalls nothing. He keeps his memories to himself, keeps his stare vacant and mildly professional, even though his watery eyes are cataloging every feature, every new change in that familiar face. The old canyon is there and always will be. A monument, a guarded Eden of the past.

What used to be is forbidden now. What is to come seems, to Aziraphale, like a gift, even if it's not what he expected.

A sun has risen over new, blank, unexplored lands in his mind. A whole world.

Ready to be explored, carved, shaped. Remembered.

All they need is time.

And time they have.


End file.
